Accessibility Equal Acceptability?

One thing I noted during my time in Nigeria was the variety of beauty accepted by the media. Tall, short, skinny, thick, boobless, bumless...men like 'em all. Yes, the sterotypical African figure is the product of 'The Fattening Room' with volumptuous curves in all departments, but it is widely accepted that true beauty emanates from within and can be contained in any form, shape & size. And to be quite frank with you, that's the truth. As nutty as we all branded him, there's a lad in law school who classed Kimmy K as too fat (pre-Nori) and Beyonce as not curvy enough (post-Blue).
With Nigerian actors & NGO crew on the set of a PSA / short film (Durumi, Abuja)
These are the women who are pedastilised by the media as having it all; successful careers, amazing good looks and a beautiful union with a faithful spouse. Yet, there are people out there who don't think they fit into their mould of beauty and thats perfectly acceptable as we are all unique individuals anyway. What I've observed of late has nothing to do with unreachable celebrities, but meagre commoners like you and me; youtubers. Now, this is not another dig at their means of revenue. rather an observation at the culture they are breeding among impressionable adolescents and developing young women.
With a famous silverscreen Nollywood actress mid-production
'My Plastic Surgery Story' has made its rounds among some of the biggest beauty vloggers on youtube and I'm becoming increasingly worried that they are (in essence) grooming young girls to view this as perfectly acceptable behaviour. We already live in such a liberal society where everyone's views are given sufficient platform to run rife, but I think there should be some level of curtailment in light of its impact on its viewers. Not from a higher power (goes against the grain of our right to free expression) but from the vloggers themselves. I am in no way condemning those who have decided to go under the knife as family members have built successful careers around altering or correcting body images as surgeons. However, where I see fault is in the laissez-faireness of the procedure and building up a network of e-followers for the normality of cosmetic surgery.
Masking the procedure behind the excuse of 'correctional surgery' is wrong. Cosmetic needs are based on insecurities, and correction is based on medical advice and evidence. Sitting atop your stool, proclaiming to the world behind an SLR lens that your newly enhanced chest was to benefit anyone other than yourself/ spouse/partner/career...etc is just false (let's be real!) I'm racking my brain trying to understand how fellow youtubers went from filming 'My Perfect Imprefections' to glorifying the need to alter what one feels unhappy about?
Onyxsta says...BLEURGH!! Has the accessibility of cosmetic surgery procedures made it more acceptable?

1 comment

  1. It's so funny that the more you don't think you're living by the rules the more you find that you are- whether it's what society, your family, friends or peers say. I'm a Christian and I'm glad that as I age I'm more about building my personal relationship with God and it helps that we have the bible as a guide so block out the human interpretations, I seek mine

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